Abstract
GALAN1,2, whose work was reviewed by Mather3, showed that the cucurbitous plant Ecballium elaterium has been shown to exhibit the simplest sex-determining mechanism ever found in higher plants. A dioecious variety growing in the south of Spain and in North Africa maintains a 50 per cent pro-sex ratio in Nature by means of a pair of alleles aD>ad. Male plants are heterozygous while female ones are recessive. On the other hand, the well-known monoecious variety which grows in Mediterranean Europe is homozygous in a third allele a+. Through reciprocal hybridization between both varieties, Galan was able to demonstrate that allele a+ dominates ad, but behaves as a recessive factor in relation to aD.
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Galan, F., C.R. Acad. Sci., Paris, 222, 1130 (1946).
Galan, F., Acta Salmanticensia, 1, 7 (1951).
Mather, K., Nature, 163, 926 (1949).
Galan, F., unpublished.
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GÓMEZ-CAMPO, C., CASAS-BUILLA, M. Radiation-induced Sex Reversal in Ecballium elaterium. Nature 208, 805 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/208805a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/208805a0
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